The Gathering
by LostObsession
Summary: It's been almost a year since the survivors of flight 815 were rescued, and Hurley's determined to gather everyone together to celebrate the anniversary. But he'll soon discover reuniting them all might be tougher than he thought. AOMM universe Jate, PB


**Summary:** It's been almost a year since the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 have been rescued from their five year stay on the island, and Hurley's determined to gather all the survivors together to celebrate the anniversary in style. However, he'll soon discover reuniting everyone is going to be tougher than he thought. AOMM spin-off. Jate & Chaire w/ hints of Sun/Jin (Sin)

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing except those characters that were invented by me for this story. In other words: any characters you don't recognize from the show belong to me, as well as the plot- anything else belongs to the talented J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Jack Bender, and anyone else at ABC, Touchstone Television, and Bad Robot who is associated with the show. Got it? Good.

**A/N: **I know it's been a long time coming, right? Well, I'm finally starting the fic about Hurley's Survivors of Oceanic 815 Reunion that I discussed in my Jate story, "Always On My Mind." I would suggest reading that fic first if you haven't already, but it's not completely necessary as this is not a sequel to it but more like a spin-off.

This story starts a little before the one year anniversary of the survivors' rescue from the island, and it disregards any character deaths after the beginning of the third season. It also disregards most of the events that happen during the third season, especially those that happened in the season three finale. Please keep in mind that in the "Always On My Mind" universe, the survivors were stranded on the island for five years before they were rescued as well.

For those of you who don't want to read "Always On My Mind," but still want to read this fic, I will promise to try and include all of the information you missed and need to know in order to understand this story somewhere in it. Even so, in case I forget to, here are a few facts you should know: Charlie & Claire are happily married and live in Australia with six-year-old Aaron (who Charlie adopted) and their two-year-old daughter, Marie; Bernard & Rose are also happily married and live in Australia as well; Michael and sixteen-year-old Walt live in New York City; Jin & Sun are happily married and live in L.A. with their five-year-old daughter, Maya and their three-year-old son, Lee; and Sawyer, Sayid, Jack, and Kate (who is currently in prison) are also all living (or in Kate's case, incarcerated) in L.A. If there are any questions, please don't hesitate to ask me.

Now, on to the story…

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**Prologue: The Start of Something**

Hugo Reyes, better known to his friends as Hurley, awoke early Saturday morning in his house in the Florida Keys to the sound of his telephone ringing. Letting out a groan, Hurley raised his head up to get a glimpse of the clock situated on his bedside table. He groaned louder when he saw it was only seven.

Unaccustomed to being woken up earlier than ten on weekends, Hurley immediately decided to ignore the telephone. Burying his head beneath his pillow to try and go back to sleep, he cursed the caller's timing. Hurley usually avoided getting up early on weekends by having his housekeeper, Lydia, or his butler, Henry, divert all of the calls to the house phone in the kitchen where they could answer them without disturbing his sleep, but Lydia had the day off. As for Henry, he never arrived before 7:15 in the morning, when the ferry came and dropped him off.

Although the pillow-over-the-head tactic worked well for a couple of minutes, it soon became clear that whoever was calling was not going to give up until someone answered the phone. Hurley vaguely wondered why the answering machine hadn't picked up when the phone seemed to start ringing even louder than before. "Just great," he mumbled. "Hasn't anyone ever heard of sleeping in?"

With a sigh, Hurley removed the pillow from over his head and, reaching out a hand, he fumbled for the still-ringing phone. Closing his hand around it, he picked it up, turned it on, and brought it to his ear.

"Hullo?" Hurley asked groggily, still a little peeved about his sleep being interrupted.

"Hurley? Mate, is that you?" An accented voice that could only be his best friend Charlie Pace's filtered through the phone.

"Charlie?" Hurley asked, slightly bewildered.

"Oh, good, it's you. I was worried I'd have to talk to that bloke who usually answers," Charlie stated. "What's his name again? Harry or Horus or something?"

"You mean Henry?" Hurley ventured.

"Yeah, that's him!" Charlie exclaimed. "Henry!"

Hurley shook his head, bemused. Then he remembered the time. Why were they sitting here talking about his butler when he could be sleeping?

"Charlie, do you have any idea what time it is, man?" Hurley questioned, slightly annoyed.

Charlie fell silent, then he realized. "Bugger…I woke you up didn't I?" he asked, put out. "Sorry, mate. I forgot all about the time difference. What is it, two or three in the morning?" he guessed. Hurley sighed and restrained the urge to roll his eyes. Typical Charlie. Then again…two or three in the morning? He almost laughed out loud at how far from the truth his friend was. Granted, the time difference was difficult to remember sometimes what with Charlie in Australia, but still. Even worse was what would happen if Hurley told Charlie the truth. Charlie would surely think he was mad for sleeping in after seven; Hurley knew from experience that his friend's wife made sure he was up and ready for work by six on weekdays, and with the two kids, Charlie and Claire could hardly afford to sleep in on the weekends either, especially with a troublesome two-year-old like Marie running around. Not to mention Aaron, who was still getting used to being off the island.

Quickly deciding against revealing that it was seven in the morning, not two, Hurley replied, "No worries, dude. I forgive you this time." His friend let out a sigh of relief, and then the conversation turned back to normal. Or as normal as a conversation between Hurley and Charlie could get, anyway.

"So, I suppose you'd like to know why I called, am I right?" Charlie began, and Hurley agreed, beginning to feel a little curious about the reasons behind Charlie's call. "Yeah, I was wondering about that. So why did you call?" he prompted.

Knowing he had Hurley's full attention, Charlie launched excitedly into his explanation. "You'll never believe who Claire and I ran into the other day at the market!" he exclaimed.

Interested, Hurley immediately began to guess. "Bernard and Rose?"

"Bernard and Rose?" Charlie repeated. "No, Hurley! I'm talking about someone we haven't seen in forever! Bernard and Rose live just down the street from us, you know that. Why would running into them at the market be big news?"

Undeterred, Hurley guessed again. "Your brother?"

"Liam?" asked Charlie. "Nah. Karen's the one who usually does the shopping; Liam hates it. The only time he goes to the market is when Karen drags him along."

Hurley sighed, stumped. "I don't know, dude. Would you just tell me already?" he pleaded, impatient.

"Desmond!" Charlie cried.

"Desmond?!" said Hurley, shocked. "You mean Desmond, Desmond? The same Desmond who was on the island with us? That Desmond?"

"Yep, the one and only!" confirmed Charlie.

"Dude!" Hurley exclaimed. "But I thought he was in England. What's he doing in Australia?" he wondered.

"Who knows?" Charlie countered, seemingly unconcerned. "But there's something else, mate. He wasn't alone."

Hurley blinked. What did Desmond not being alone have to do with anything? Still, he decided to please Charlie anyhow. "So?" he questioned, "who was he with?"

Charlie, not missing a beat, said, "That girl. Penny. You know, his girlfriend or whatever? The one who helped rescue us?"

"No way!" Hurley said in disbelief, his eyes widening, but Charlie assured him it was the truth. "And guess what else?" Charlie started. Before Hurley could ask, Charlie answered his own question. "They're getting married!" he revealed, his voice filled with glee.

"Are you serious?" asked Hurley, but he already knew the answer, and Charlie once again swore it was the truth, adding, "She had a ring and everything! And Desmond actually looked happy!"

"Wow," Hurley said softly, still stunned.

"I know, right?" Charlie responded. There was a pause in which Hurley heard Charlie talking to Claire in the background, and then he started again. "Sorry, about that," he apologized. "Claire thinks we're acting like a bunch of gossiping women." Hurley could almost see Charlie rolling his eyes in exasperation. Wait a minute…gossiping women? Before he could respond, Charlie continued. "Anyway, there was another thing I wanted to talk to you about," he said.

"What is it?" asked Hurley, suppressing a yawn and forgetting about Claire's comment.

"Well, while we were talking to Desmond, he kind of mentioned that the one year anniversary is coming up," Charlie answered nonchalantly.

"The one year anniversary?" Hurley stated, completely oblivious.

"Yeah, mate," responded Charlie. "You know, it's been almost a year since we were rescued from the island? That one year anniversary?"

"Oh! That's right!" Hurley replied, suddenly remembering. "Sorry, dude. I'm still a little tired."

Charlie waved the apology away. "That's alright. But anyway, after Desmond reminded us, we got to thinking..." He trailed off.

"Thinking about what?" asked Hurley curiously.

"Well, just that it is a pretty big event, right, what with it being the one year anniversary and all? And so Claire and I were thinking…maybe we should do something? You know, to celebrate."

Hurley suddenly seemed wide awake. Why hadn't he thought of that? How could he have forgotten? The year just seemed to go by so fast…

"That's an awesome idea, dude!" he agreed. "We should definitely do something!"

"Brilliant!" Charlie responded. "Claire and I knew you'd be the right one to call! So, have you got any ideas?" he asked right away.

Hurley shook his head, grinning. Leave it to Charlie to not waste any time. "I don't know, dude. I have to think about it some more, preferably when I'm actually fully awake, before I can come up with something good."

Charlie laughed. "Well that's okay. I mean, we still have time. The anniversary isn't until a couple of months from now!"

"Yeah, that's a good thing," Hurley agreed.

There was silence for a minute as Charlie left to talk to Claire about something. Then, "listen mate, I've got to go. Aaron's been coloring the walls again, and Marie's refusing to take a bath. Claire's getting really frustrated, so I'm going to go give her a hand. I guess I'll let you get back to your beauty sleep."

"Alright," replied Hurley. "Well, thanks dude, and tell the kids Uncle Hurley says hi, okay?"

"Yep," said Charlie. "You'll let me know when you think of something, right?" he asked.

"You'll be the first one I call, dude," assured Hurley. "Go take care of your kids. I'll talk to you later."

The two exchanged goodbyes, and right before they hung up, Hurley could vaguely make out the sound of Marie's crying screams and Claire's angry voice reprimanding her children. The last thought in Hurley's mind before he flopped back down on the bed and resumed his sleep was of how glad he was at that moment that he wasn't Charlie.

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**A/N: **And so concludes the prologue. I still have about a month before I return to school, so if I'm lucky and don't get too busy, I'll probably be able to update a couple of times before then. I do sometimes tend to get caught up in other things, especially schoolwork, or to procrastinate (as anyone reading my Choices Series will tell you), but I honestly try hard not to. Reviews are a good incentive for me to keep working too. hint 

Well, I hope everyone enjoyed it, and like I said: if there are any questions, please feel free to let me know. All comments, thoughts, etc. are greatly appreciated, and as always, thanks for reading.

Ana


End file.
